Team Guidance & Branch Lifecycle Procedures

[ashleyshaw]

What documentation is needed?

Add branch lifecycle and cleanup procedure guidance for team members. This includes:

• Update CONTRIBUTING.md with 'Branch Lifecycle & Cleanup' section
• Add branch activity monitoring guidance
• Reference monthly cleanup schedule
• Link to BRANCH_CLEANUP.md runbook
• Enable team self-service cleanup

Why is this documentation important?

This documentation helps team members understand the complete branch lifecycle from creation through cleanup, supporting better repository hygiene and reducing stale branches. It enables self-service cleanup and reduces maintenance burden on the team.

Related to #1234 (Repository Maintenance Infrastructure)

Acceptance Criteria

• CONTRIBUTING.md updated with lifecycle section
• Monitoring guidance documented
• Cleanup procedure links integrated
• Team-friendly language and examples
• Documentation is clear, accurate, and up-to-date
• Follows WordPress documentation standards
• Documentation is accessible and easy to find
• Changelog entry prepared for PR if user-facing update

Additional Context

Status: Completed — Guidance is discoverable and actionable

Related PRs: #1211, #1222, #1204

Project: projects/active/repository-maintenance-infrastructure/

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Definition of Ready (DoR)

• Documentation need is clear and well-defined
• Related docs/issues or files linked
• Acceptance criteria listed
• Parent issue Repository Maintenance Infrastructure (Phase 2B Project) #1234 linked

Definition of Done (DoD)

• Documentation meets org standards and guidelines
• Changelog entry prepared for PR (CHANGELOG.md)
• Documentation reviewed for clarity and accessibility
• PR uses correct branch prefix (docs/)

[linear-code]

LS-1784

[github-actions]

⏱️ Aging and SLA annotation

• Age: 12 day(s)
• SLA state: SLA risk
• Thresholds: warn at 7 days, breach at 14 days
• Last updated: 2026-08-05T11:17:40.441Z

Maintained by project-meta-sync workflow.

[github-actions]

Metadata governance

• Item: Team Guidance & Branch Lifecycle Procedures #1237
• Assignee: ashleyshaw
• Milestone: v1.0
• Linked issues/PRs: Repository Maintenance Infrastructure (Phase 2B Project) #1234

[github-actions]

✅ Template check passed after update. Thanks for fixing the issue body.